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1. Introduction
The digital revolution is considerably influencing tourism-related industries (Benckendorff et al., 2014; Law et al., 2014). The major impacts have come through websites, social media (SM) and mobile telephony, as highlighted by scholars (Leung et al., 2013; Sigala et al., 2012). The adoption of SM and sharing on these platforms are growing globally. According to a report by eMarketer, the number of SM users across the globe exceeds two billion, and more than 28 per cent of people worldwide used SM regularly in 2015 (eMarketer, 2015). SM platforms have become a powerful social tool for online communications, allowing tourists to interact and share their views, to collaborate and to contribute to developing, extending, rating and commenting on tourism experiences (Ayeh et al., 2013; Gretzel and Yoo, 2013; Leung et al., 2013; Sigala et al., 2012). In using SM, tourists become co-designers, co-producers, co-marketers and co-consumers of tourism experiences (Sigala et al., 2012). These developments in Web2.0 tools have had a considerable impact on consumer behaviour and are presenting a host of new challenges as well as opportunities for tourism providers and destinations.
Some of the main issues and challenges related to the post-experience stage are online reviews, experience sharing and evaluations of services. SM platforms have opened new channels of communication between tourism providers and tourists, and these platforms are offering huge opportunities for customer feedback. One of the main functions of SM is to establish an interactive channel of communication, which is mutually beneficial to the parties involved: it offers a medium for tourists to express their desires and requirements and gives tourism providers a tool to acquire customer feedback (Leung et al., 2013; Oz, 2015). Furthermore, SM platforms have been recognised as innovative knowledge-sharing networks because they enable tourism consumers to connect, share and interact with others (Oz, 2015).
For this reason, SM, as interactive platforms, are gaining attention for the tourism industry (Benckendorff et al., 2014; Gretzel and Yoo, 2013; Law et al., 2014). The impressive adoption and extensive use of SM have revolutionised all tourism-related industries. More importantly, these developments have had an influential impact on strategic and operational marketing and management functions in the tourism field (Law